


Words to See

by Ephemeral_Is_The_Light



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Graphic Description, Original Character(s), Short
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-27 08:26:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/659889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ephemeral_Is_The_Light/pseuds/Ephemeral_Is_The_Light
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a few snippets I've written over the years. Drabble-ish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Tree and The Stream

**Author's Note:**

> The idea that was in my head was two images: one steady and the other that flickered giving glimpses into something like a different reality. Then I tried to put it to words.

The Tree and the Stream  
By Tiffany Tomasino

At first glance (open eyes for just a second, _enough_ to _see_ but _not_ more) everything is normal.  The sky is sky and the grass is grass.  There is a tree farther back on a hill and a stream closer but lower in its bank.  The wind is wind and the light is light.  Nothing is more, nothing is less.

At first glance.

If looked at again (and _again_ and _again_ ) nothing is _normal_.  No such thing, (no- _no_ -no) no thing such as _normal_.

The stream is _dying_ —oops, _drying_ , the stream is drying up.  It slowed and fell and trickled.  Going, going, gone (well, not _quite_ but almost).  Just a glimmer-shimmer-slosh of ribbon-water.

The tree is (on _fire_!) drying up too.  The leaves are turning color ( _burning_ ) green-brown-black and falling.  They fall and fall and fall.  One.  At.  A.  Time.  Even as the limbs shrivel and writhe and twist; weathered and withered ( _BURNING!_ ) as the tree dries up.

At first glance, everything is normal.

Huh.  Why then am I so…

_Afraid?_


	2. The Clock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something like a a series of pictures of the same object. Each picture focusing on a different detail.

The Clock

There is a clock.  It sits against the wall.  The varnish long since scratched and peeled away.  The clock was a grandfather clock; tall and slim and old.  It was faded to a gray-brown chipped, splintered, cracked.

The hands should have long since stopped but were still tick-tick-ticking away.  The simple, iron pendulum still swayed.  It was lulling; hypnotic.  A lulling, hypnotic lullaby of soft sounds and rough time.  Or roughened time, perhaps?

The clock was tall and slim and old, chipped and splintered and cracked.  The glass was fogged and filthy.  Unclean and un-cleaned.  A childish handprint in the bottom left corner.  The handprint of a child.  A child-print of a hand.  Childish, old, fogged, and faded.

The clock.  It was.  It is.  It will be.  But it most certainly was and is, still, faintly.  On its left side a drawing.  Little stick figures of faded-brilliant-old-colorful wax.  Four little figures smiling crooked-wax smiles; faded, cracked.  There were-was-is curly-wax clouds and a wavy-wax sun and straight-wax grass and a big-wax tree.

The clock.  It sits against the wall.    


	3. The Man and The Pool

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just more working with imagery. A sort of motion contrasted with stillness.

The Man and the Pool

It is an ocean; an ocean without water. Spread as far as the eye can see; an ocean of sand. Golden sand rippling into the distance like waves frozen in time; never rising, never falling. A vast, blue sky above. Unchanging change. Beautiful and deadly. A desert of gold and wind and fire. A desert ocean of sand.

A pool. A mirror. A broken reflection. It is a ribbon-snake hidden amidst golden grains. It is truth and untruth; sweetly bitter, bitterly sweet. Beautiful.

A strong, muscled back. Broad shoulders to narrow hips. Smooth, tan skin. Blonde, wavy hair. Well-formed arms to large, male hands.

A turn. A profile. A blue, blue eye. A finely curved brow. High cheek bones and a patrician nose. Thin lips and an angular jaw.

Humming: soft, soothing.

Eyes lock; staring. Daring. Half-lidded and lazy—indulgent. Large hands dip, down, into the pool. Brought up, cupped; full.

Hands, cupped and full, pushed forward—toward—and offered. Thin lips twich.

And Smile.


	4. The Woman and The Scorpions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was actually a dream I had. It was so vivid I half felt that if I focused hard enough it would paint itself.

 

 

 

The Woman and the Scorpions

The land was not sand but it was dead, dry.  It was a red-brown-black dust of cracks and earth and stone.  It felt like grit, rough and raw.  My feet moved, pendulums, swaying.  Repetitive: wash, rinse, repeat.

I thudded forward—or backward, or sideways, or no-ways—always.  Always all ways, always.  It was repetitive: wash, rinse, repeat.

The land was flat and the sky was too.  Hazy red-brown-black blurring with blue-gray-white.  Maybe white-grey-blue?  But blurry-hazy, yes.

My feet didn’t hurt.

My legs didn’t tire.

I walked.

Then gradually—not sudden, no, slow and slower and slowest—a smudge, a thing, in the blurry-haze.  The smudge-thing un-blurred less or more slowly than the dust-wind but it un-blurred all the same.  A house?  A hut?  A hovel.  Domed dust-dirt bricks and a black-pitch hole.

Something else now out of the hazy-blur, the blurry-haze.  A figure?  A person?  A woman.  Skin dark like obsidian rock without the shiny and eyes that shone black brighter than any stone.  It made the whites of her eyes seem whiter; milk-white or egg-white, or milk-egg-white.  Her nostrils flared but her nose was straight.  Lips trembled, pressed thin but still full; red-brown.

A cloth twist-braided about her head.  Once white, maybe.  Brown-black braids spilled from beneath beside a slender throat onto thin shoulder; right.  Short-sleeved tattered red like blood-spill over too thin, too small.  Long arms—skin over bone—hands more bone than skin. Wrap around skirt not blood, not white, just dust.   

Movement.  Sudden.  A hard, moving mass of shadow draped about her feet like sycophants before a queen.  It rippled, wavered.  It grew.  From feet to ankle to calf to knee to thigh: up and up and up.

The woman—a woman—shook and trembled.  No sound, not sound, nothing.  Eyes wild but motionless.  Still.

A ripple.  A feeling.  Look down—and down and down.  Eight legged and stinging tails; black-brown.  Hard, moving mass of shadow draped about my feet like sycophants before a queen.


End file.
